Aelli - This is why I don't play Ele Shaman anymore

[zenga]

My point was more: it doesn't really matter what multibox team you there in quest gear who plays his first arena game vs a season geared boxer with a rank 1 title ... he is always gonna get raped, definitely without a healer.

But, Elemental is unequivocally the worst pvp spec in the game, even solo. Multiply that by four, add in disadvantages of stacked hard casters and it's even worse.

They don't get a lot better with gear. Mine are in full malevolent and they still suck - everything hits like a wet noodle, they have zero survivability, and ascendance is the easiest thing to chain cc and lock down. I went resto on all four of them, super OP healing spec that stacks very very well.

I've a shaman with the T2 2/2 weapon, and there the damage is really good vs full geared players (elemental blast / instant lava burst / full fulmination combos hit like a truck). But totally agree that compared to what other specs can do consitently ele is in a really poor state. I went resto on that shaman and have the 4p resto bonus (silence/interrupt immunity for 5s during spirit walker's grace) which combined with an aura mastery from a hpally makes it a bit less problematic. But I'm not even gonna go into the flame shock dispel and no defense issue.

However I've done a bunch of wargames on the PTR and I'm somewhat positive (from a solo perspective). Nature's guardian (which already was good) no longer removes the gained health, which is basically a free heal every 30s when you are low. Stone Bulwark totem got buffed as well, but the problem remains that it's an earth totem for tremor and earthgrab. Unleashed fury got buffed (-10% lb and +10% lava burst damage after unleash fury) which makes imbue dancing pretty good when you have to go defensive (rockbiter gives you 40% mitigation vs the target you unleash on for 5s, on a 15s CD). It's not like you were gonna cast a whole lot when trained by melee. The biggest defensive buff however is shamanistic rage, and more so the glyph. Every minute you take 30% less damage for 15s, but your offensive spells won't consume mana either. That might sound as not important, but ... remember that rolling thunder won't proc vs shielded targets. Seeing how they buffed disc, there gonna be a bunch of comps out there who run with a disc and mana could really become an issue there (definitely with the purge nerf and if you off heal a lot). Besides the dmg reduction shamanistic rage allows you to do more in general, without going oom. But the glyph is even better since it removes all dispel-able magic effects. Meaning you don't have to trinket the first swap on you (deep, hoj). All this makes ele way more tankier, and a less likely target to swap on to.

Damage wise, ele is the lowest performing of the common raiding dps specs currently. And on the PTR they haven't really tuned the numbers of the spells yet, more so the mechanics. The dmg and buff that elemental blast provides makes it less of a necessity now to damage with elemental mastery on a 1m30 CD, unleashed fury buffing lava burst and primal elementalist got buffed with 30%. I mean there are several options now. But it would be really problematic if they were not to buff single target damage this patch. Cleave/AOE already got buffed: chain lightning no longer loses damage for each jump it does and lava beam increases by each jump. The only reason I can see that prevents single target buffs is the new PVE tier 15 two piece set bonus: it does a lightning strike proc similar to cunning of the cruel in cata, which currently does about 5-6% of my single target damage on the ptr (17-18% when aoeing). So I hope that set bonus does not withholds a single target buff to lava burst or lightning bolt (still hoping for some execute effect with earth shock).

And the main reason why ele has been lagging behind in the recent patches is always poor scaling. Other specs get more benefit from their main stat (int) and from secondary stats. This chart shows pretty clear (mind you it's for pve where the effect is obviously more noticeable than in pve) what the issue is. Stat weights basically quantify how much a spec gains out of a certain stat. An affliction lock gains 4.73 out of a single increase of int, whereas an ele only gains 3.86, Secondary stats for ele are really low as well compared to what other casters gain out of it (these numbers are based on the entry epic pve gear, but it's not like they are completely upside down with higher ilvl, quite the contrary).

So yeah I think if they were to buff single target damage, ele will be in a pretty decent pvp spot in the next season, how that will affect boxing ele's is another thing.